


Red Mars, Green Narn

by Karel1944



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alien Culture, Alien Politics, Anti-imperialism in space, Canon Divergence, Mars is Red, Narn dialectics, Other, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28298274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karel1944/pseuds/Karel1944
Summary: A brigade of volunteers from post-revolution Mars come to help in the reconstruction of Narn. In the process they learn there's more to solidarity than simple sympathy. A divergence from eusuchia's "Breakwater" G'Kar/Franklin fic.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Life on Mars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eusuchia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eusuchia/gifts).



The Dahkiy Working Group, Dawogro, made their way up to the base of the peninsula. Transit was slow: their Narn counterparts mostly on foot, the Martians mostly riding the crawling landbarges that the Narns used for bulk hauling on rough terrain. The barges were slow enough for the Martians to walk for short periods, and then clamber back on to rest and catch their breath. Their caravan stopped near the base of the peninsula, where the Narns had set up a base camp. Jhonry had watched the Peninsular Working Group continue onward, its contingent of Narn and Martian geologists trekking further onward to establish a prospecting base using pre-War survey maps.

Dawogro divided up into their subgroups. Jhonry was in Subgroup 5 along with an Earthborn surveyor named Ekki, an engineer from Arabia Terra named Muhandis (as a joke, Jhonry assumed), and a hydrologist from Mars One named Sticks. They were paired with a set of Narns, like all the other subgroups. Kantik, a Narn geologist, and Ajil, the agro-ecologist, were locals to the peninsula. Grael, Ginak, and Gidrik were all workers from the capital. The Narn company was heavy on workers, a change made early after the brigade’s arrival on Narn when the Khariy had realized how hard the gravity would make everything for the volunteers.

Ginak was the Narn translator for the subgroup. They seemed junior to Gidrik, but Jhonry wasn’t sure if it was an official thing or a social thing. The volunteers had all received basic education on Narn, its history and people, and some simple language training, but they didn’t really know the Narns as individuals. Most of the brigade had come after hearing earlier volunteers like Stephen Franklin and Arthur deliver speeches alongside their Narn compatriots. They had felt a deep sympathy with the struggle for the liberation of Narn, and a horror at what the Narns had endured. For them it had been an easy choice to put their various skills to work rebuilding the Narn homeworld. If other humans could join their heroic struggle, why shouldn’t they?

But on Narn itself, it was hard to follow what was going on around them. Few of the Narns spoke a human language, and most of the volunteers could only communicate in the pidgin Mar-Narn developed by Explancom’s linguistics subcommittee in collaboration with Narn linguists. Only a handful of specialists or cultural workers among the Martians spoke Narn Standard. Even Peach Theo, their political officer, was supplementing their hasty language education with machine translation.

Even when they could speak to one another, they were strangers. Not only in the way Martians from different domes were strangers, or even the way Earthers and Martians were strangers. The Narns were aliens, and outside of Babylon 5 most humans rarely found themselves in the company of aliens, let alone living on an alien world. The trip to the base camp had been marked by friendly distance between the two cohorts.

***

“The site is two kilometers ahead, druh Jhonry.”

Ginak’s Martian was clear, if formal. It rumbled out from him like an actor rehearsing their lines. When Jhonry glanced over, they were looking over their dataslate. Probably checking the distance conversions. The Narns had their own measurement systems, but had been giving the Martians travel distances in numbers they could picture.

The riders shifted and grabbed handholds as the barge swung sharply up, the front rising into the air for a moment as they crossed the ridgeline. As the barge dropped down on the other side, Jhonry could suddenly see the northern gulf, shining dully in the far distance. Between the ridge and the sea, the ground descended in a broad series of terraces, broken by craters and landslides. “It’s pretty” they told the Narn. Jhonry could picture how it might have looked before the bombardment, wide green steps leading down to the green sea. Ginak glanced up.

“Maybe,” they said shortly. “I never saw it before.”

Jhonry paused. “I suppose it looks different from Martian eyes,” they offered. “It’s more green than I’m used to.”

Ginak looked up again, and glanced around the broken landscape. “I’ve never seen Mars,” they replied. “Maybe.” The word ‘green’ meant something important to a Martian. Jhonry supposed it meant less to someone who had grown up next to fields and stands of plant life.

Kantik, Ekki, and Muhandis had moved on ahead while the barge paused. The Narn and Earthborn engineer walked smoothly ahead to a nearby rockslide, Muhandis following awkwardly in the jerking, exaggerated stride forced by the exoframe. The three made an odd trio: the Martianborn and Narn looming over the Earthborn surveyor, the Martianborn engineer shockingly narrow next to the bulky Narn and stocky Earthborn.

After some fiddling with instruments and consultation, Kantik waved to them and the barge ground back into motion. Grael stepped up onto the low control platform at the front, and Jhonry lowered their gaze to the site ahead. A small farming village, only partly damaged by ejecta from the crater to the east. The buildings sprang close as Jhony clicked their viewfinder into place, shapes blurring briefly while the optics found the right focal length.

The village looked typical of what they had seen of older settlements on their travels eastward. The tall, circular compounds would once have held whole clans, with larger compounds for more prominent clans. Ajil had told them something of the local clan system from before the first occupation. The Centauri had ripped apart the threads that bound the local Narn society, and the great reorganization resulting from the liberation struggle had meant there was no going back. With new social bonds formed from work and struggle, villagers had begun to organize their living spaces by their work teams. Only in poorer or more remote regions, less disrupted by the first occupation, was it still common to organize social life through ties of kinship.

The village reminded Jhonry of stations on Mars - a few larger buildings surrounded by a scattering of outbuildings. All they were missing were the sealed walkways. It had the same stillness as a station, too. The village was abandoned. Stripped of workers by the Centauri, with fields rendered barren by the effects of the bombardment, the few remaining Narns had left for the cities, or trekked out to find the nearest resistance band. Subgroup 5’s task was to establish an outpost, study the region, and evaluate potential reclamation projects.

***

Jhonry and Sticks wandered through the village. It was still too hot, now in the early afternoon. The others were inspecting the inside of the most promising structures, but a soil biochemist and hydrologist weren’t much help. They had made their way to the north edge of the village when Sticks’ breathing grew laboured. “Druh, let me catch my breath,” Sticks wheezed, taking a series of slow, deep breaths to avoid gasping.

“Can you make it to the wall over there?” Jhonry asked, pointing to a low wall along the northern edge of the village. Sticks nodded, and the two made their way across the packed ground, jerking stiffly with their exoframe gaits. Jhonry waited while Sticks sat, carefully circle-breathing and sipping water. Down from the ridgeline they couldn’t see the gulf, and they wanted to walk out to the edge of the terrace to see it again. They had rarely seen that much liquid water, outside of sampling trips to the often-frozen lake at the bottom of Hellas Basin.

In the distance, they could hear the crunch of the barge’s wheels. Kantik came jogging down the wide path they had followed, which continued out onto the terrace. “This way!” they called in Mars-Narn, pointing west and then turning away when Jhonry waved an acknowledgment. Sticks took Jhonry’s outstretched hand, and the two of them made their way along the wall toward the new base site.

“Thanks, “ Sticks said as they walked. “I guess I lost my breath in Dome One.” It was a common refrain. Dome-dwellers weren’t as active as the technicians, miners, and surveyors living in the stations, and of all the volunteers they had had the most trouble adapting.

The barge was parked outside one of the shorter compounds, just under two stories tall. Outside, Muhandis was arguing with Gidrik while the other Narns unloaded the barge. Ekki intercepted Jhonry and Sticks as they approached. “You should talk to Muhandis” they told Jhonry, quietly. “You’re both station techs, they might listen to you on this.”

“What’s wrong?” Jhonry asked, stopping.

“Muhandis has been going over our unloading and setup checklists,” Ekki replied.

“And? It’s standard procedure.” Jhonry started forward again, and Ekki stepped quickly into their path with the smoothness of someone raised in high-G.

“The Narns disagree. They want to offload just enough to set up a cook-station for tonight, and then begin setting up as the need arises.” Ekki shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

“Why not? Because we have a checklist.” Jhonry frowned. Life on Mars, especially in the stations, ran on checklists. Checklists for station entry. Checklists for station exit. Checklists for oxygen cycling, for water cycling, for dust control, for seal maintenance, for plant health, for personal health… sometimes checklists to check off other checklists. If you forgot a step or a procedure, someone could die. A part could fail, with no replacement. A station’s power plant could go dark. Checklists kept the early colonists alive on Mars, and their descendents respected their necessity.

“It’s just a checklist,” Ekki countered, shrugging again. “This isn’t Mars.”

Jhonry and Sticks exchanged glances. “Druh,” Jhonry replied carefully, “if there’s a checklist there’s a good reason for the checklist. I’ll talk to Muhandis and Gidrik.”

Ekki stayed with Sticks as Jhonry lurched over to the group. Kantik had joined Gidrik, while Ajil had vanished off somewhere. Muhandis was frowning, strapped into the heavy metaframe rig, now standing a head taller than the Narn. “We need the power plant and the comm array before anything else. Once those are set up, then we can think about quartering.” They looked past Gidrik to Jhonry as they approached. “Even then, that’s not what the checklist says. Jhonry, I’ve already conceded that we can quarter without getting the reagent storage set up. But they refuse to unload anything tonight after the quartering gear is accessible.”

Gidrik shook their head. “We do not require fusion or data transmissions today. On our arrival, we require food and shelter. We are able to prepare food without fusion. The weather is warm. We are able to take care of our needs and finish your checklist tonight and tomorrow.” Their Mar-Narn was slow and precise, but Jhonry still had to focus on following the new con-lang.

“Without power or comms how can we report a problem to our base camp?” Jhonry asked Gidrik. “The fusion plant” - a converted Starfury engine - “is needed to power life support and the frames.” Gidrik shook their head again.

“The primary camp could not send any group soon enough if we had an emergency. There are no life support systems. This checklist was written by people on Mars who only thought of how to set up a habitat on Mars. This is Narn. Your checklist is not useful here. You are being bureaucratic.” They swung a hand into the metaframe, rocking Muhandis slightly.

Each of the Martians froze. The volunteers and their Narn counterparts had kept their distance on the trip, feeling awkward and uncertain in the presence of alien strangers, worried about giving offense or misunderstanding. But there had certainly never been any fights. The situation felt unreal to Jhonry. “Druh,” they began, “why did you strike Muhandis?” In the heavy metaframe, Muhandis could hurt someone if things escalated.

“I was making my point,” Gidrik replied, short and abrupt. “How will you know how strongly I feel? Just from the sound of my voice?” They were getting louder. “It is we who will be doing most of the work. You can hardly stand up without your frames.”

Ginak stepped in between the Martians and Gidrik, holding out their hands. Jhonry hadn’t even noticed them stop their unloading. “Let’s take a moment” they said, gesturing outwardly. Gidrik stepped backwards, and Ginak turned to Jhonry and Muhandis, repeating the gesture. Uncertainly, the two Martians stepped backward as well, until there was a loose triangle around Ginak.

They squatted down, looking from person to person.

“Gidrik, you are being H’meHt. Unnecessarily antagonistic. Muhandis, you are being bureaucratic. Inflexible. Jhonry, you are being condescending. Gidrik knows the rationale for the list. They just disagree with it. They - we - are not children. We will not follow your rules once we understand the reason. We understand and reject them.” They rolled their shoulders and stood back up. “We respect your desire to help. We respect your internal organization. But this mission has begun on an - “ they paused, looking for the word - “artificial basis. We have not established a clear basis of unity. This will require struggle, but all of us must resist bureaucracy or antagonism.” They gave each person a sharp look. “This is my analysis.”

Gidrik blew out a long breath, rolling their head for a moment. “I accept that analysis,” they told Ginak. “But we’ll still set up quarters before the fusion and data transmission. I was not wrong.” Ginak waved a hand. “I agree. So do the others. We think the Martians are being bureaucratic on this topic. Tonight we will discuss further.”

Jhonry looked at Muhandis. “I suppose we can talk about it tonight.” Muhandis frowned. “We still need power to charge the frames.”

Jhonry nodded. “And we could use a O2 bottle for Sticks.”

“Battery packs and air for your comrade,” Ginak said, looking over to Gidrik for a confirmation. “Ajil needs to find a sufficient spot for the fusion plant, and it will take hours to set up. Better to do when it cools. In the early morning.”

Muhandis looked to Jhonry. “The metaframe will still need power.”

“Leave it until we unload the fusion,” Grael called from the stack of woody Narn cartons they had been piling near the entrance to the compound. “We will unload what we need right now.”

Jhonry walked over to Muhandis. “Let’s leave it for now,” they said. “We don’t want to start our new station off with hard feelings.” Muhandis sighed.

“I’ve seen that before,” they admitted. “It makes for a rough mission. Alright. Help me out.”

Ekki and Sticks made their way over as Jhonry helped Muhandis dismount the structure of the metaframe. The release catches were awkward, the exoframes lacking finger supports to avoid injury and maintain dexterity. By the time they were done the Narns had begun unloading again. Ajil stepped out from the compound entrance, and walked over to the group of humans clustered around the metaframe. “Come inside,” they told the humans. “We could use your hands there.”


	2. Food Before Fusion

Jhonry, Ekki, Sticks and Muhandis followed Ajil into the compound. The entranceway was deep, around 8 metres, and as they passed through the end they could see the chambers sectioned off within the wall, open to the inner compound. To either side a stone path curved along the inner circumference, while ahead of them was the smooth curved wall of a cluster of low, domed buildings that seemed to fill the interior of the compound. All were covered in a thin network of small dark growths, like long-dead vines.

Jhonry stepped forward, out from underneath the dark, dull platform that extended out from the second story of the outer wall. It formed a walkway along the second level, covering much of the lower stone pathway. It had a set of rails to prevent falls, and many sections had a trellis structure in place of a covered roof, draped in dry strands of long-dead vegetation.

Ajil turned to them. “We need fire,” they told them. “For cooking. Muhandis, Sticks, there oven at the ground quarter-points. There working well, but the water salted. The condenser and the distiller both there.” The two Martians nodded. It would be faster for them to set up the water equipment than the Narns, and Sticks was familiar with it. Ajil looked to Jhonry. “Up stairs, look for eating dishes. There should be eating dishes there, bring them down here.”

Jhonry nodded. “Plates and bowls?” they asked, miming their shapes with their hands.

“Yes, like that,” Ajil confirmed. “and - “ they hesitated - “spoons? Small half-bowls, for picking up food. Wood or metal.”

Jhonry had mostly seen Narns eating with their hands, but maybe the people who had lived here had different customs. It was different on Mars, where the small, mixed population meant there were rarely regional differences in customs. “I can look. But why? We have meal kits on the barge.”

Ajil made a gesture Jhonry couldn’t quite interpret, like a small toss of the head. “We will be here for some time. It will better for us to live like home, not camp.”

Jhonry couldn’t think of the words to explain their response in the fabricated creole they were speaking. You tried to make a station your home, on Mars, but even Dome-dwellers didn’t have much in the way of possessions. And on stations it was a kitbag, and maybe a few small keepsakes. Home to Jhonry was a photograph, a broken earring, a flute. Not dishes and whatever else. It sounded like the way an Earthborn would think. “Okay,” they said. “Anything else?”

They put one clawed finger to their lips, thinking. “Any jars,” they said. “Might have… food things.” The linguists were still working out new words for terms the committee hadn’t considered originally. Food words had been a lower priority than technical vocabulary.

***

The stairs were some kind of plant material, cut in thick beams and smoothed. Jhonry had half expected them to bend or tear, to be rotting with the moisture of the oceans. But they were dry and hard, softly creaking as they made their way carefully up. Stairs on Narn were strange for the Martianborn, too tall to take two or three at a time like the Earth-standard stairs on Mars.

The entire inner ring of the second tier was made of the same material, shaped into beams and planks. Jhonry hadn’t seen any Earth-style trees in the region. The floor extended a few meters inward from the narrow stone pathway running along the chambers built into the outer wall. From where Jhonry stood, the chambers looked to be a standard size, but their fronts varied. Some were open to the inner court, lacking any wall. Others had walls formed of the same dried earth as the rest of the complex, but with doors, windows, or screens in place. Still others bore tattered remains of woven plants or fabrics hanging across the openings.

There was no obvious way to open the screen door of the nearest chamber, so Jhonry lifted it gingerly out of the doorway. Careful gross motor control was hard in the frames. The feedforward algorithms tended to exaggerate small force differences, resulting in sudden linear movements. They set the screen aside, undamaged.

Inside was a small room, dark but for the light entering behind Jhonry. Along one wall was a high, narrow table, supporting several open shelves above it. Most of the wood was carved, marked with intricate geometric patterns. The back third of the room was a short platform made of brick and topped with some kind of mats. Along the other wall lay another set of mats, planks, and other objects that had the look of finished goods rather than raw materials. Jhonry found it difficult to parse the objects. A Narn would probably see a typical room, with typical furniture and materials, but they couldn’t even decide if it looked abandoned, or if the owner had left with the intention of returning.

On the side bench were a few deep ceramic dishes, and a pair of clay cups, again intricately marked in patterns that reminded Jhonry of the terraced layers leading down to the sea. A pair of small jars stood near the dishes, and Jhonry set them all outside near the steps.

The other chambers were variations on the first. Several seemed to be storerooms, filled with dusty crates and bundles and tall clay jars. Others had been combined, holes knocked through the wall to make a larger chamber. Most had the same brick platform along the outer wall, and shelves or other storage for personal goods. There was little in the way of furniture in the small rooms. Jhonry supposed the Narns must have spent much of their time on the platform-ring, sitting on the mats or low stools they had found. The rooms reminded Jhonry of the small private bunks in the larger stations. There was less common space on Mars than here, at least on the stations, and the whole complex here seemed designed for its inhabitants to spend their time collectively, using their chambers only for sleeping and storage. 

It didn’t take too long to gather a stack of dishes and small jars, along with a few curved utensils that looked like small halved bowls or saucers. Jhonry supposed they served as a kind of wide spoon, although several were much larger than the others. They wanted to explore more, but at the same time it felt invasive, like walking into someone’s bunk space while they were away.

“Come up and help me bring this down,” Johnry called down to the ground level. They had brought their find a quarter of the way around the ring, near another set of stairs where they’d heard Muhandis’ baritone and Stick’s breathy tenor. Sticks came up the stairs after a moment and then paused at the top, peering out over the inner dwellings of the complex. “Did you look around in those?” Jhonry asked them, stepping closer to the rail.

Sticks shook their head. “No, I just finished setting up the water. It’s brackish. The pH is off, too. I had to set up the distiller-condenser to draw from the well.” They paused. “I don’t know if it’ll be enough for our needs long-term. I’m going to talk with the Narns about using some of the sample drills to bore down to some of the deeper aquifers. We may end up needing to use moisture traps, though.” They sighed and leaned into one of the columns holding up an overhead trellis. “I’m not quite sure how to make them, we don’t have any prefabs with us. All the Narn records said this region had good groundwater.”

Jhonry made a face. “That was then, this is now. You can’t have global environmental changes and expect things to stay stable.”

“I know basic scientific dialectics,” Sticks snapped. “I expected there'd be some disruption to the water system here. If we were on Mars I wouldn’t expect to find water. Here it’s everywhere.”

“But not a drop to drink, yeah,” Muhandis added, looking up at them from the bottom of the stairs. “Ekki and Ajil went to do something in the middle bit. I can’t get this fire going. You need a hand?”

Jhonry waved at Muhandis to come up. “With you we can just do one trip.” They turned back to face Sticks. “It was a criticism, but it’s not only on you. Volcentcom’s science teams should have realized it back in the capital. And we only had so much room on the barge. The Khariy could have thought of it too.”

Sticks shrugged elegantly, lifting their hands over their shoulders. “I’ll figure it out.”

They were feeling embarrassed about earlier, Jhonry thought, and trying to make up for it. But there was no need to unwind all of that with Sticks right now. “Let’s just get things ready for food after the Narns unload.”

***

The cooking area was broader than other parts of the ground level. Two big ovens were built into the outer wall, flanked by low, square brick stoves. One of the stoves had a broad, round metal pan set into the top, but it was thin with rust. Muhandis had tried starting a fire in the other stove, using the fuel stacked near it. It hadn’t taken.

“What do you want?” They had asked Jhonry. “You can’t even start fires on Mars.” Not enough oxygen in the atmosphere, even decades after initial terraforming efforts. “Don’t worry about it,” Jhonry had replied. The three of them were feeling a bit on edge. Ajil might have meant to diffuse things by asking them to take on some tasks, but only Jhonry felt like they had handled theirs. The three of them were all realizing how little they knew how to live on Narn.

There were no chairs or tables in the cooking area, so the three of them had brought down some stools and what turned out to be low, easily disassembled round tables from some of the nearby dwellings. Unsure of what to do, they had sat in uneasy silence for a few minutes, listening to the bustle of the four Narns unpacking the barge as they shuffled crates and packages into the inner ring. After a few more minutes, Kantik had joined them, shooed off by the three workers who were employing their own system for organizing some storerooms.

Ajil and Ekki emerged from a low opening into the central dwellings as Kantik seated themself on the edge of the rusted stovetop. Ajil was carrying a large package bound in some kind of textile, with Ekki trailing behind them. Ekki walked over and sat with the other humans. Seated on the Narn-sized stool, the Earthborn was still small, but it was less noticeable than standing among the towering Narns and tall, though less robust, Martianborn. “Any progress?” they asked, looking around the cooking area. “Not much,” Muhandis replied sourly. “Do you know how to start a fire?”

Ekki laughed softly. “I used to. I haven’t had to light one in years.”

Ajil clicked their teeth, and set their package down beside Ekki. “I can fire it. Did you use the shavings?” Muhandis blinked and spread their hands. “There is some fuel. I used a lighter, but the flame wouldn’t take.”

They clicked their teeth again. “You need to feed it like a baby. Small food to begin, then bigger food. Watch.” They walked over to the stove and collected a handful of loose tinder from one of the bins, and set it on a thin wrapper from another. From their belt they drew a short, broad knife and pulled a slim rod out of the handle. Setting the rod among the tinder, they scraped the spine of the knife down the rod, sending out a contained shower of sparks. After a minute they had a small flame burning, which they set into the stove and fed carefully with more of the wrappers and small pieces of fuel. “We will need to decide on a source for fuel,” they told the humans, rising and wiping their hands. “There is not enough here for more than a week.”

Kantik meandered over to the stove and pulled a long pipe from their bag, packing it with a pinch of something and lighting it with a thin taper from the stove. They took a slow draw from it, held it, and then slowly breathed the smoke out through their broad nose. It smelled pungent and spicy in the dry air. They rubbed at the glossy patch of scar tissue laying across the left side of their head with their free hand, and peered into some of the bins near the stove. “There’s some residue here of a fossil fuel. I’ll check the charts. There may be a source nearby. Would be good not to rely on fusion.”

Ajil waved a hand. “We can search later. Ekki, would you ask them to bring over the pan? The miql’a, if they aren’t sure what you meant.” They turned to the pile of dishes and jars Jhonry had collected. “Would you fill this with water?” they asked Sticks, passing over a larger, empty jar. Ajil set a place at one table, with a broad dish in the middle and a smaller, deeper dish with one of the “spoons'' beside it. “This is how we usually eat here,” they told the humans. “A central dish, shared among all.” They gestured as Grael and Ginak approached, carrying a large round pan to place on the empty stove-platform. “Jhonry, to set up dishes for all?”

Jhonry began setting places as the pan was set into the stove with a ringing scrape. The Narn workers began unpacking food supplies, and Kantik began arranging materials for the meal after tapping out their pipe on the side of the stove.

As Jhonry was setting the second table, Ajil suddenly broke out in the coughing noise that some Narns made for laughter. “Not that one” they said, pointing a claw at one of the bigger, wider utensils that looked like polished bronze. “It ahhh, scraper. For cleaning skin of oil.” They picked up the scraper and demonstrated, brushing the edge firmly down their arm. Kantik noticed and started coughing as well, but the three capital Narns stopped their work and looked unknowing at the other two. Kantil stopped coughing and walked over, while Ajil caught their breath.

“In some places Narn clean by rubbing our skin with oil,” Kantik explained, with a small cough. “The hl’ika is then used to scrape off the dirtied oil, leaving the skin well-treated.” They looked over at Ajil and grated a short sentence in the Narn language Jhonry had heard them use before. Ajil wiped their eyes and tossed their head, before replying in the same tongue. Kantik turned and spoke to the other Narns in standard Narn. Grael and Gidrik both made a deep chuckling noise, but Ginak frowned.

“You should not make a joke of the human for not knowing this,” they told Kantik and Ajil. “We -” indicating the three capital Narns - “could have made the same error.”

Grael punched Ginak in the shoulder, the blow from the stocky Narn staggering the slighter one. “And they would have been laughed at too,” they told Ginak, their voice flat and metallic. “If they are strangers here, we are half strangers.” They added another sentence in Narn, making Kantik cough again before everyone calmed down.

Jhonry had reddened slightly, but Grael’s words helped clear the sting of embarrassment. It wasn’t them being singled out for being human, but just a joke the way anyone might make a joke about a foreigner’s ignorance. Rude among humans, still, but Narns seemed to find that kind of understanding funny. Narns seemed to think they should dish it out and take it in return, but Jhonry decided they’d rather be read as a bit stuffy than risk giving offense.

At least with Gidrik and Ginak. The others seemed more laid-back. Ajil seemed particularly at ease as they began heating some of the water Sticks had brought, humming and clicking to themself, occasionally punctuating with a ringing tap of their claw on the pan.

“After food, we will sleep,” Gidrik told the group. “We have time now to plan work. Narn schedules and human schedules have points of intersection. We will plan work for Narns only, for humans only, and for both.” The four humans sighed almost in unison. Another planning meeting. Narns loved planning meetings.


End file.
